Dr. Daniel Jackson is a man apart from his peers. An Egyptologist, Jackson
has come under fire for his unusual theories regarding Egyptian civilization
in general, and the great pyramid of Giza in particular. Though he has no
idea who built the great pyramid, Dr. Jackson is sure that it was not the
pharaohs.

Ostracized by his colleagues and evicted from his apartment, Jackson can fit
his entire life into two bags. Then he is approached by a woman named
Catherine and given a job offer: translating ancient hieroglyphs. With
nowhere else to go, Jackson accepts.

Taken to an underground Air Force base inside Creek Mountain, Colorado,
Catherine introduces Jackson to Drs. Barbara Shore and Gary Meyers. For the past
two years, they and Catherine have been working to translate a strange set of
hieroglyphs carved into a huge cover stone found in Giza. Catherine's father
found it, along with something else. Not a sarcophagus, something far more interesting...

But before Jackson can find out what that something is the new Air Force
Officer in charge, Colonel O'Neil, informs him that this project has become
classified.

For two weeks, Dr. Jackson works on the translation. The inner track of
symbols in the traditional hieroglyphs comes easy enough (reading, in part,
"A million years into the sky/Ra, Sun God/ Sealed and buried for all time is
his Stargate ."), but the outer track is composed of symbols that do not
match with any known language.

Frustrated, Jackson goes out of the lab to get water for a pot of coffee
when he spies a guard reading a newspaper. On the back of the paper is a
picture of the constellation Orion.

Hit with an epiphany, Jackson calls a meeting off the local brass. He feels
the untranslatable symbols are, in fact, constellations, with seven
constellations arranged in the center of the cover stones to form a
planetary address of sorts. Six points to find the exact center of any
three-dimensional space (in this case, the universe) and a seventh symbol
for a point of origin (Earth).

Dr. Meyers protests, sighting that the seventh symbol Jackson points out is
"nowhere on the device."

Programming the seven symbols into the Stargate , the team watches as the
Stargate's inner circle begins to spin. When all seven symbols are locked
into place, a nimbus of light opens within the Stargate's center, rippling
like water.

Sending a probe through the gate, the team discovers that the gate has
formed a link with a similar Stargate on the other side of the known
universe. Together, the Gates functioned as a doorway between Earth and the unknown
world in the Kalium Galaxy.

Pictures reveal that the symbols on the Kalium Gate are different from those
of the Earth Gate. General West is less then enthused. "This project is for
naught without a reconnaissance mission."

Whoever is sent through the Stargate will have to essentially "dial home"
after first deciphering the symbols on the other Stargate .

"Well, I can do that," Jackson says casually.

"You're on the team," General West informs him.

As he packs to leave, Catherine gives him a golden necklace she found with
the Stargate as a child. It's a small medallion, stamped with the Eye or Ra.
"It will bring you luck," she says.

Headed by Colonel O'Neil, the team enters the Stargate , coming through with no apparent
problems. Exploring the structure that surrounds the Kalium
Stargate, the team finds no signs of life. Outside, they find themselves
in a vast desert. Ascending a hill and looking back, they find
something even stranger: the Kalium Stargate is housed inside an exact
replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

"I knew it," Jackson says.

However, this presents a problem. As a replica of the Great Pyramid, there
are no symbols on or around the structure. No carved relief of any kind.
Without and order of alignment, there's no way for Jackson to "dial home."
No way for the team to get back.

This revelation inspires some ire from the Air Force men, most of it done
behind Colonel O'Neil's back. Venturing out into the desert to retrieve a
suitcase full of books, Jackson comes across a huge, almost bison-like
animal with a harness around its head. Jackson feeds it some chocolate.

"I wouldn't feed that thing," O'Neil warns him.

Jackson points out its harness when, suddenly, the animal rears up and
starts running. With his foot wrapped up in its lead rope, the animal drags
Jackson off into the desert.

Licked awake, Jackson awakens in time to meet up with a trio of military
men, led by O'Neil, who chased him through the desert. Walking away from
Jackson, the three notice something over a sand dune. Joining them, Jackson sees a
huge mine, populated by people speaking a language he can't begin to recognize.

As they approach the mine, ever worker in the mine falls to the ground in
penitence, as if praying to the men. An old man appears from inside the
mine, riding another of the bison like animals. The only work Jackson can
make out is "Kasuf", the man's name.

Through his bowing, Kasuf invites the four men to go with him back to a huge city
seemingly made of Adobe. The men arrive just in time, avoiding a
gigantic sandstorm swirling outside.

Back at the pyramid, the rest of the team has to abandon their base came and retreat
inside the pyramid.

Inside the city, Jackson recognizes a symbol carved into a huge golden disk:
the Eye of Ra. The disk matches Jackson's medallion exactly. The people of
this planet believe the Earthmen to be messengers from the God of the Sun.

Following logic, Jackson draws the eye of Ra in the sand. Kasuf's reaction
is immediate and fearful, stamping the symbol out. It seems writing is
forbidden to these people.

Evidently thinking they have offended him in someway, Jackson is taken away to a
tent by a gang of women. The women proceed to wash his hands and feet vigorously
until he (gently) fights them off. They leave with many bows and a much younger,
much more beautiful woman enters. Thinking she is another "cleaning woman"
Jackson dismisses her...until she begins to disrobe.

Startled, Jackson puts her clothes back on her and almost takes her out of
his tent. He stops only when he realizes that she is a "gift" from Kasuf,
obviously the chief of this particular hamlet. To reject her would be a
great insult and cause serious cultural damage. He retreats back into his
tent when the girl. He tells him his name as best he can. She tells him her
name is Sha'uri. Jackson draws a pyramid to illustrate where he came from,
but she looks away. "Forget it," he says.

Only then does she begin to draw in the sand, drawing a pyramid with a sun
above it. The symbol for Earth. Jackson asks (through rudimentary sign
language) if she's seen this symbol somewhere. She nods. "Show me," he says.

Back at the pyramid, the rest of Colonel O'Neil's team huddles from the
storm. The sounds of the storm are soon blotted out by much louder noises.
Outside, and even larger pyramid descends from the sky, using the
comparatively smaller pyramid as a landing platform. Inside, the team
spreads out, only to be picked off one by one by an unseen enemy.

Sha'uri leads Jackson to a cave covered with hieroglyphics. As he mumbles
the words aloud to himself, Sha'uri begins to repeat it, and understand it.
The people of this planet speak an ancient dialect of Egyptian, not spoken
on Earth in thousands of years. As Jackson begins to grasp the mechanics of
the language, he learns the true story of Egypt, the pyramids, and the Sun
God Ra.

When O'Neil finds him, Jackson relates the story. A traveling alien search
the stars, looking for a way to prolong it's own life. It found a primitive
race, humans, and saw within them a chance for eternal life. With his
technology, he could sustain and control them forever. He possessed the body of a
young boy and appointed himself emperor, using the Stargate to bring hundreds of
slaves to this planet to mine the unique mineral found on this planet. All of Ra's
technology springs from this mineral, including the Stargate .

In another chamber of the cave, Daniel finds a chart of six constellations,
just as he did on Earth. But the seventh symbol is worn away by time. The
team skill can't return home.

The next day at sunrise, with the storm cleared, the Earthmen set off for
the pyramid. They find a gigantic pyramid-ship perched over the original,
stone pyramid, and no sign of the rest of the Special Forces team.

Entering the pyramid, they come under heavy fire from men carrying staffs
that fire bolts of energy. The men wear seemingly robotic helmets in the
shape of a falcon's head. They are dressed as the god Horus.

Fighting their way through the Horus men, Jackson and O'Neil make it to the
Stargate. O'Neil begins to search through the team's equipment, looking for
something in particular. Suddenly, a section of the ceiling opens and six
rings, looking like miniature Stargates, descend. These function as a
teleportation system, and a man materializes within the rings. He carries a
staff and wears the metal head of a jackal. The god Anubis. With one gun
between them, O'Neil and Jackson surrender.

They are teleported inside the pyramid ship, right into a huge audience
chamber. A man dressed in a huge headdress enters, surrounded by dozens of
half-naked concubines. He wears a metal face as well, the face of a pharaoh,
the face of the sphynx. The face of the Sun God, Ra. At his order, the "gods"
remove their masks, revealing their human faces.

Ra's servants set an atomic bomb in front of Jackson and O'Neil. The bomb is
of human origin. Jackson asks O'Neil about the bomb. O'Neil is
uncommunicative. Instead, he grabs a staff weapon and blasts a Horus guard, takes
aim at Ra...but Ra's servants surround the Sun God, protecting him. O'Neil hesitates
and Anubis knocks him cold.

Outside the pyramid, two Horus' take off in airships shaped like predatory
birds. With on-board energy staffs, they bombard Kasuf's town from above.
Inside the pyramid, O'Neil is thrown into the hold with the rest of his
captured military teammates. In another chamber, Daniel wakes up, "repaired"
by a high-tech sarcophagus. He's escorted to Ra's bedroom. The Sun God tells Jackson
that he will soon send the atomic bomb back through the Stargate , along with a shipment
of the mineral that is the building block of his technology, amplifying the explosion
a hundred fold. He also plans to have Daniel publicly execute the military team, or
else Ra will kill everyone who has seen the Earthmen.

Sha'uri calls the youths of the city together, bringing them to the cavern
of hieroglyphs. She tells them the story Daniel told her, and why they can
no longer live as slaves to false gods.

Ra's public execution is interrupted when the Sha'uri's band of youths being
firing the military men's guns into the air. The resulting panic allows the
Earthmen and the youths to slip away into the mountains. Once at a safe
cavern, O'Neil tells everyone his true orders. He tells them he was to
search for signs of any hostile civilization and, if he found one, blow up
the Stargate .

Inside the pyramid, Ra takes out his anger on an unfortunate captain of the
Horus guards, liquefying the man's brain with a powerful gauntlet. Ra will
not accept failure.

In the caverns, Jackson finds out that Sha'uri is actually his wife, and has
been ever since she was "given" to him by Kasuf. She did not tell anyone
that he did not consummate their marriage with her. "I didn't tell them that
you didn't want me," she says. Jackson takes the opportunity to correct that
assumption by consummating their marriage.

The next day Jackson finds Sha'uri's brother drawing a picture on the wall
"The day of our victory," he calls it. It is a pyramid below the planet's
three moons. On a hunch, Jackson connects the moons, finding the symbol for this planet.
The point of origin. He can send everyone home now.

At the mine, O'Neil sneaks in and kills a Horus guard. Kasuf and everyone
else falls to their knees, saying that the Earthmen and the youths will
"bring disaster upon us all." But Jackson retracts the Horus' helmet,
showing him to be just a man. "Take a look at your God," Jackson advises.
"Take a good look."

The revolutionaries sneak up to the pyramid disguised as a caravan paying
tribute to Ra. Daniel, Sha'uri and O'Neil sneak inside, blowing away the
Horus' on the inside of the pyramid, but not before the Horus' seal the
pyramid, trapping the bulk of the revolutionaries outside. Ra deploys two
airships to bombard the revolutionaries. Inside, O'Neil activates the bomb,
saying that it's now Daniel's job to disassemble the gate back on Earth. But
before Daniel can activate the gate Sha'uri is shot by a surviving Horus.
The Horus doesn't survive for long.

Daniel transports up to Ra's ship and takes Sha'uri to the sarcophagus. In
his place, Anubis teleports into the Stargate's chamber and begins fighting
O'Neil. Outside, the revolutionaries run completely out of ammo. With no
other option, they surrender to the Horus'.

The sarcophagus heals Sha'uri and Daniel heads back to the transporter. Ra
intercepts him, and attacks him with the gauntlet. "I am no longer amused,"
the Sun God says.

Below, O'Neil gains the upper hand in his battle with Anubis. He maneuvers
the jackal man's head inside the transporter rings, teleporting it off of
his body. Daniel and Sha'uri beam down in his place, escaping Ra's wrath.

Outside, all looks bleak. Then, the miners pour from the hills, led by
Kasuf. The huge work force mob the two "gods" and take them down easily.
Fed up with these impudent humans, Ra begins to lift off.

In the Stargate chamber, the atomic bomb is still counting down. "He's
leaving, turn it off," Jackson says. O'Neil can't. "They've got it rigged."
With no other option, they teleport the bomb into Ra's ship. It blasts the
pyramid out of orbit.

Exiting, the conquering heroes face a crowd of cheering people, liberated
from the rule of the false gods.

Inside, Daniel opens the Stargate . The team goes through. All but O'Neil,
who pauses. Jackson has decided to stay. At home he had nothing. Here he has a wife and
a family. An entire people, in fact. A place to belong. "You sure
you gonna be okay?" O'Neil asks him. Jackson looks at his wife and his new
family. "I'm gonna be okay. You?" O'Neil looks at him. "Yeah...yeah, I think
I am." Jackson gives him Catherine's medallion. "Tell her it brought me
luck," he says. O'Neil takes it. "Be seeing you, Dr. Jackson," he says and
walks off into the Stargate .